About Atorkor

A SHORT OVERVIEW OF ATORKOR

Atorkor is a small village in the Anlo district of the Volta Region (South Eastern) part of Ghana. It is located on the Atlantic coast with beautiful sandy beach.

Atorkor is located some 28 kilometres away from Keta, a prominent coastal town in the Volta Region of Ghana. Due to its proximity to the Golf of Guinea, the area is very sandy and there is little arable land available for farming and the greater portion of the area is covered by sea sand.

Atorkor village is blessed with lovely natural beaches, calm & peaceful life, good roads linking it and Accra, the capital city of Ghana as well as surrounding towns and villages. It is sandwiched between the sea and the lagoon, and has some of the warmest and friendliest people in all of Africa. Basically, it is a safe, enchanting village and a wonderful place to visit. It has a population of about 6,000 people.

There are no major economic activities in the village. The main occupation of the village is fishing for which the inhabitants depend on the sea and the Lagoon. Fishing in Atorkor has declined considerably due to:

Depleting stocks in the immediate vicinity of the shore line and the use of archaic traditional fishing methods which limits the fishermen to fishing only in the immediate vicinity of the shore line. Over fishing as well as illegal fishing by large foreign fishing trawlers. The construction of the Dam by the Ghana Government to generate Electricity which resulted in the Lagoon/River virtually drying up.

ORIGIN OF THE NAME ATORKOR

The original name of the village was Adelako’s hamlet (“Adelako kope”).

Adelako was one of the sons of Togbui Tsatsu Adeladza 1, the second Awoamefia of Anlo. Adelako erected hamlets for hunting& fishing purposes at the spot we now call Atorkor, hence the name Adelako’s Hamlet. During that time, River Volta had suitable tributary flowing from Anyanui to Keta lagoon and thus very suitable for navigation. The hamlet was erected at the bank of the flowing River and it became an attractive trading spot.

The spot brought in Akan speaking traders who transacted business with the natives. However, due to the swarm of mosquitoes, the traders demanded in Akan language “metor mekor ntem” meaning “let’s buy and leave quickly”. This Akan saying had changed the original name of Adelako’s hamlet to Atorkor, a corrupted version of “metor mekor ntem”.

ATORKOR AND THE SLAVE TRADE

Atorkor like many other places in West Africa was associated with the slave trade. Atorkor was part of what was formally known as the Upper Slave Coast. Because of its location on the Atlantic Coast it became a port for the shipment of captives procured from the interior. A monument shown below was built a few years ago in memory of this unfortunate trade, with funds provided by a group of Anlo citizens in America.